This documentary is a powerful and intimate portrait that captures Joan Mitchell's independent spirit and testifies eloquently to her art.

Joan Mitchell was born in Chicago in 1926 and died in Paris in 1992. After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago, Joan settled in New York City in 1950.

Mitchell was an active participant in New York's dynamic Abstract Expressionist scene and hung out with fellow painters Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston — and soon, poets Frank O'Hara, James Schuyler, and John Ashbery.

In the mid-1950s, Mitchell moved to Paris, France. There she was part of a circle of friends that included Pierre Matisse, Samuel Beckett, and Alberto Giacometti. Mitchell is one of the great abstract painters of the 20th century.

This elegantly edited documentary weaves interviews with the acerbic Mitchell and other leading painters and critics while letting her stunning pictures dominate the film. Stephen Holden of the New York Times says, "The canvases have grand chaotic romanticism. While celebrating the physical universe with an ecstatic love of color, they don't shy away from expressing a harsh, feral apprehension of nature and its violence."

Directed by Marion Cajori.

DVD. 54 minutes.